professor. he teaches mental skills. and similarly if you are a politician you can say i am proposing we do a million more college -- a year. it's a good number and you can describe how to get to that. it's actually a lot harder than it sounds because it turns out the marginal people tend to be much more likely to flunk out than the people who are already there. ..

>> student debt at previous levels being a thing of the past and politicians can say but they want to see two sets of responses people are on that treadmill harder and harder which would be a nightmare and people who dropped out altogether is the different nightmare of a different kind so i don't think we will have the problem that the day and the

the days. [laughter] more questions? >> still a celebration of the denmark speed skating victory. >> i and a colleague on both accounts but one of the reasons bankruptcy works is there is a stigma. it seems to be much of american life to give people second chances we have to keep fat balance you could argue in the 1970's to reduce the stigma of divorce and lots of people got divorced that turned out to be bad then as our colleague pointed out well credentialed affluent people stop getting divorced.

and people are still getting divorced. how do we maintain that balance? and there is some way to quantify that semitist is hugely important and to talk about russia there is a lot of thinking that the markets were just the absence of government but there is an enormous amount of the software of the society. card where of that capital,

said the cultural capital that we have that makes it worth something. is little things like standing in line. this sounds dumb but the way you stand in line matters a lot how you handle crowds also the sense i sent money all the time to random strangers they sent me stuff back. >> talking about amazon. [laughter] but it is phenomenal how much works on trust. because we have a culture in cultures -- countries that don't you see a lot more fraud. >> it takes a lot of cultural work to make it happen.

similarly i agree we had a lot of cultural capital but that is when it shows up in the '50s and this is described there is no reason that is the last person shrew should be allowed to tear it down. somebody put it there for a reason. if that no longer applies but if you said this is stupid then you are a dangerous the attack. so that you decided the ancestors were wrong and we know better for all these

ideas about marriage but when you see the price with the elite america is great. it is called the super relationship. where you meet a person you have interests in common and you vacation together but at the bottom we need to figure out how to put it together because the of values of the elite are not what they practice now they practice early 1950's america there are better places to raise kids and it is better to have someone that has your back. i don't know how to get back there. one of 300 million people at a time.

>> i may be more pessimistic about stigma. i think naturally those that are cranky and prejudice is how much stigma can reapply? i am happy for stigma as a whole to be weakened otherwise groups suffer. if you lose stigma against bad activities but we would gain to have it we can even with marriage weakening rather than thinking the men are brought to. [laughter] review what has weakened marriage is women deciding didn't want to be married to brought to an end with there are other social externalities' with that is a welfare improved make you could be married to a guy or other things happen she is

better off on her alone so even as current margins i would rather see stigmata weaker and we be more tolerant and less prejudice. >> we have time for one more question. >> i just bought the book. >> congratulations to you. [laughter] >> i am the winner. if we talk about stigma and clemency or mercy in terms of managing failure is the first grant that has stigma of the values giving people a second try? have you looked at that? >> looking at a book that

emphasizes forgivenesses is cheaper than rethink it is weak italy shoots yourself in the foot for the last measure but we actually need the justice and who among us could stand up? that does not mean you should blindly forgive purdy made off did something wrong but should not be allowed to manage money in the more. so first is learning from the mistake. it is harder to fakir patents -- fake repentance than you think. most people don't even bother. of a place to think of social institutions were

this is happening in social circles. if you're genuinely at the end of your rope with a medical illness with bankruptcy will feel bad but basically your family and friends will say you have cancer you have a $200,000 mortgage and lost your job. what else would you do? whereas if you run up credit card debt your friends know that you were driving to the bmw dave will be of little more been. >> and the state cannot tell the difference but the social networks can. that is where this happens. it doesn't happen very much at the government level. >> thank you. books are for sale and wine

and cheese are for free. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> it is truly an honor to be here at a decision that has done so much to increase public understanding not only of the experience in the united states but also asian-americans and that haitian diaspora. i am particularly, i am an editor at "the new york times" said the mostly traffic and words with careful editing. i tried to be to the nuances of diction, syntax, and also meaning. but i and very aware of the acute and injuring power of images. and looking at these two books the immense visual of re that has been amassed that is quite distinctive i don't think in any of the books i have read arab or

asian americans have such a visually rich and frankly disturbing collection of images. i will briefly introduce because the biographies are in the program our speakers and they will proceed to give a brief presentation about why they decided to write their books for their documents. these are facts. then moderate q&a then get some questions from you. to my immediate rights is john tchen who goes by jack and historian curator and founder of the museum. i remember when it was down on east broadway. >> in the school building.

>> a rich history of 35 years. >> also the founding director of the american studies program and to put the divisive social -- social and cultural analysis. he just completed an essay the subject of this evening also has an upcoming exhibition at the new-york historical society in his next book will be published alongside that exhibition and. our next guest teeeighteen specializes in united states is refocusing on the political structure. american politics, the asian american history also a public historian and train darkest and is licensed to give to workers in new york city. and finally real jack

shaheen focusing on negative images and stereotypes and other minorities a former cbs news consultant on a very popular series and his new book is and "a is for arab" he has a collection that donated and deposited at new york university and is very special within 4,000 images of television programs and pitchers and cartoons and toys and games with anti-arab for anti-muslim depictions. we will start with jack shaheen and then moving to john tchen and dylan yeats. >> thank you for that gracious introduction.

i am extremely pleased to return to this museum i was here right after it opened a few years ago and was impressed with the commonalities that exist with asian americans and arab americans and some of the stereotypes they had to endure over all these years including complementing john tchen and teeeighteen on their new book "yellow peril" the professor offered to buy me a lot today i will take him up on that. [laughter] but seriously "a is for arab" is based on for decades of work where i with my wife are collecting images of popular culture more than 2,000 television

shows hundreds of comic books cartoons, and it all began innocently and never meant to look at this. i have green eyes. i a non-arab. it was nothing that appealed to me and tell one day i was upstairs in the mid-70s my children came running up the steps saying they have bad arabs. i did not know what you do except i went downstairs we saw cartoons like porky pig and bugs bunny trouncing of the arab said that this is interesting. so i asked if they would be

so kind to document those images so on saturday morning i am having coffee and i hear daddy and iran downstairs by would write frantically about the cartoons. today at the library at nyu you will find dozens of children's cartoons to show porky pig, bugs bunny, one was disney just one visual this is an old disney the 1947 cartoon called creasy with the heat and the arabs are trying to do away with donald duck.

now i have documented more than 1,000 children's cartoons that in one way or another showed the drug as evil. -- the arab. it is not about one-tenth of people but the vilification of the people. indycar -- any group what goes into the process. how to dehumanize with asian or arab. to show only then negative attributes with a grain of sand then you take out the pieces that don't fit and save this represents the people and turned into sandstones of regula images

you have the terrorist and the shake in the women that were portrayed as submissive anthony wiener wife i think someone said of course, she is buried he is married no wonder he gets away with these things. really? you can look up the role of the asian women. there are sexual images but there are many commonalities i will not get into the other thing i have always talked about with my students your and i must say i am deeply grateful to nyu

at the kavorkian center for accepting it to utilize and share with students and faculty. it is wonderful. getting back to the common balances -- commonality when you vilify you compare saddam hussein to hitler in makes it easier over and over again the images so you dehumanize the people by excluding family they cannot have children they cannot go out on a picnic because if you see a family together all of a sudden they are

like us. to make sure that never happens you exclude family into focus only on the grains of sand of their culture the line used over and over again you can still hear it today those people do not value human life. as an excuse for the holocaust for the chinese exclusion act or the japanese for the incarceration of japanese-americans during world war ii, black with the justification for lynchings were white families could go to lynchings and have a picnic and enjoy themselves as young black men were hanged. mystery has all of these lessons.

and all of our challenges learned we hope the dialogue not only to reveal the of warts and consequences but possibly some solutions as to how we can shatter that mythologies to move forward so we can unite rather than splitter sole support, etc., etc.. so with that professor. >> is the delight to be out talking about the is this is what we have been going over four years and years now we

can talk about it in public. let me tell you the connections we will do a little tag team. i was the first one born in this country my parents are refugees i found myself growing up outside of chicago watching black-and-white tv with flash gordon and i could not figure out what was going on it did not make any sense. so realized i must have been traumatized because i spent most of my life to unpacked is to make sense of what is going on so that meant and

would be collecting tidbits and fragments from things better in the year just floating. but in the used bookstore as the process was expanded from looking at what happened to chinese-americans also thinking about japanese-americans and what have been big california with asian groups and to to think of the larger context because with the actions to other asians so in some ways this book "yellow peril" is something headed is the consequence of these decades. to be sensitive to the fact to collect this material it is seen that is not talked

about. talk about profiling to justify the war people are not automatically costabile looking at these images but in some ways we have become conditioned to american society in terms of luxor smells or attitudes. it is like a reader's digest looking at this phenomenon not just from those sweet spots of exclusion in japanese-american and incarceration and concentration camps but also looking back deeper to find out that we brought it

forward. let me just say briefly before i pass it over to dylan, in the collection and process cough thanks for doing this also noting in doggerel the and journalism we're looking at images. but certainly sounds and smells sense of touch are deeply communicated in terms of ideas and i used the word oriental of course, not just those others you graphically confusing the far east meaning japan, china, korea i am not sure about philippine so the sense of

east and west is confusing but east if the point of view of europe and then the middle east also jews? also as orioles -- oriental. this category is significant not just the word oriental or though books but also the sound. i just brought a little fun thing to listen to. actually 1930 sound a bit from a cartoon that this is the very beginning. i wish i could show the video but you can go home to look at this. in a chinese laundry and has long pigtails and this is the music that it starts

with. ♪ ♪ ♪ you get the idea of. [laughter] this is what i grew up with even as they do in the grant

into the country now this is part of the exposure to become an american but what you acquire. it is not just knowing in your brain but feeling the cents that something oriental and strange and different will happen. that septupled whole set of problems they could be seen as dancing cats and mice were seen as something dangerous and an american and of course, we talk about a whole range of responses. it is like a program response enologist irrational now i hear this or this.

we want to encourage all of you and the things that you notice to develop the "yellow peril" collections project at large to make this understanding probable. so now dylan will talk about his background. >> it is a thrill to be here. i am asked a lot why i have worked so long on projects like this because i am not asian-american therefore in period not subject to some of these. and started to get involved because they almost randomly it took a class in the

spring 2002. [laughter] and interested in new york history so i would take kids class and it opened my eyes to an aspect of american history i have not been familiar with and i was impressed with just how much mainstream american culture is so obsessed with these images with manet decades and centuries of documentation how it has been defined against this fantasy of oriental type. my experience was similar to others it was surprising and not surprising it all brings

true but we never really step out and reflect what that means. over the last 12 years to work with a variety of projects, learning more about asian american history to get more obsessed myself to collect and analyze over that period of time i was learning about that as i was watching the implications of this form of thinking the way these stereotypes have defined with americans think of themselves. the implication as suggested are scary. we have seen the erosion of civil liberties, excessive

civilian collateral damage and other changes and is llama phobia of rise up not that it was not before but over the last decade that got me thinking about culture as a was watching that i was watching the movement material with racism here with u.s. foreign policy and that argument makes sense all the way back to american history with those stereotypes to affect the u.s. foreign

policy in general and the willingness to invade for the less than human people. one of the things we have been trying to do is mine the culture to use the sense of for chins and genealogy to analyze and think about one of the key threads dickey chapter is the coming war. even if they don't take of themselves as the direct target that the world view that it engenders is one there are people out to get us with that mentality with the notion of christian or

white superiority in that context as problems arise as foreign policy fails there is no room for introspection or self reflection just room for the escape go. when you set it up that way it lends itself to the fixation to try to blame somebody else. we have a long history to blame people for better oriental to map in this book hit could shift but it is always their fault instead of powerful. everyone should be invested to self reflect to promote analysis to expose it to as

a misunderstanding so we can look with fresh eyes and a shared humanity instead of hunting for the phantoms. >> i will ask a few. one of the fascinating things i have read in "yellow peril" 2014 is an important year perhaps more so in other parts of the world especially europe and marks the centenary of world war i and i was interested very much how 1914 was a period of vampire that was not acknowledged declining empires which obviously for

more than seven centuries controlled the islamic war. but the cartoon in particular that kaiser common is a depiction i just assumed it had to do is the anti-asian immigrants but not at all but the early 20th century prediction that relates to the japanese expansion as a result of the industrialization modernization and what it meant for earthy ailing china with the fragmentation and conquest. so to ask each of you to what extent are these images wrapped up in the empire?

>> it is directly connected there is say'' about abraham lincoln saying how much public opinion matters in the united states. when we go to war with the recent conflicts in the iraqi and afghanistan it was easy primarily because for decades we had perceived arabs and muslims not as "yellow peril" put the green in this it would segue into the agreement as. what amazes me how many think politicians are immune to these images and journalists with integrity are and immune to these images? the stereotypes once they are imbedded function as a

poison this virus and it is very difficult to get rid of them. if it escalates as a justification of the empire or whomever. >> i would agree completely you could check out in the book peonage referred to but different allegorical angels that each represent the european country and they are changing all michael is trying to rally them together as the archangel to fight the dragon. [laughter] yet in a perfectly encapsulates this because what the kaiser was trying

to do is argue the european nations should not be fighting each other over who will control china but unite together to keep japan out in part because germany would be on the end of that so it was an appeal to christianity and whiteness to advantage to raise access to the chinese market and territory. if you don't mind of a bike to show the poster because it mentions of world war i. it is called a rising tide of color in the preface is from the president of the american museum of natural history it is an incredible popular book with the arab with a rifle than chinese or

asians and africans are rising up. sorry. i am not good with microphones. it says the only victor of world war i was japan because it exposed to the colonized people of the world that whites were not in control and not superior in japan would unite all the colonized people to overthrow colonialism and that would be terrifying to come back and punish what they had done to them with many of the anti-colonial movements across the globe we don't ever think about that history how important colonialism was for the world and how much it affected the products that

were created. so this goes back to the point with the impact of fantasies on the west generally is the fear that colonizers could punish that set up makes any appeal for justice or freedom sound like a an affront to the very survival of the west itself so we're very much wrapped up in that. >> the central theme to the book is the dr. fu manchu. is in the imagination by one to encourage you to look at those thousands of millions of books that are out there. also to watch the mask to

see how they have played out first of all, food manchu was seen as evil incarnate to have the advantage zero of western education and oxford and harvard all the more menacing. [laughter] and of course, in some ways he was a minority he achieved very well. [laughter] but then of course, he went to the dark side because he was affronted. so who authored the peace a british writer and once he saw the defines where china

was reacting with the missionaries of china that hit the headlines hugely all over the western world and that reaction there was an audience out there with the evil or any resistance to the expansion of colonial powers. but certainly asia as well also we see the direct historical connection but what is interesting about fu manchu he has control he is trying to recover the mask

and withhold the documents with those raids of king is gone and those are not -- armies were able to sweep through asia with king guess:and through europe and they have always been a threat to any settled nation the image of fu manchu was those that were wearing different costumes they took all different kinds of arabs and chinese and japanese and threw them together these are the dangerous ones that fu manchu controls to have the authority of genghis

khan then they are revised then who knows where else? but it is quite dangerous is the death rate that fu manchu has the electronic gray used not used against the west but that will be and of intrepid hero is to commandeer the death dray to kill everybody right away is a weapon of mass destruction. >> to ask a fairly provocative question is there a danger of your project collapsing with an incredibly diverse array of negative images.

but upstairs in the permanent exhibition you will see that famous bread during world war ii the magazine to do distinguished evil japanese from the chinese that were our allies and to delineate how do you tell french from enemy? messines foreign policy will turn on a dime. we forget those iranian setter not arabs but those of change dramatically with the installation of the shaw the images wax and wane and are not stable. how to they account for that? what do you attribute it to? >> i can speak to the era vintages we used to have

others talk about the faceless the legionnaires and that faded also with the tarzan movies and the cowboys and indians similarity. to attack the cavalry is all the same it is just different costumes but the plot is the same but then an early on the arabian nights fantasies but never early on the characters like to far -- jafar from aladdin. where they don't like your face and cut off your year

but it is home. i remember talking. i was talking to jeffrey katzenberg at disney that did not think anything was wrong with the song but that is another story why we complain and that the fault primarily with the oil embargo of the invasion of the sheikh instead of a sloppy guy he was rather impotent to finance terrorism. then it took on the identity of all palestinians there is a movie called the a venture in and i racked -- iraq and then is long particularly

after 9/11 with the american muslims hiding out so i think technology in world events will alter those images persistent the era as the evil enemy other with those images that we see. >> talking about the l.a. to see -- the images that we see. >> but one group is

considered evil or good japanese or chinese or koreans. so this is important is not being able to extinguish one group from another. with their bad one moment and good in another but they appear to be from the appearance to be asian or for and looking the foreign policy in to be for and looking it could be manipulated very quickly depending the feeling to grow up to reverse the image of chinese be had the power

to make that impact it is both historical and also they are in various configurations but a lot of it is tied to a sexual threat the pattern talk about is the evil non-white mail that was so gruesome looking that is dangerous with the threat to white womanhood so it is the key part that makes it more powerful. >> i will just say that the pop culture representations' given the current geopolitical moment and how

it is a tenuous connection how people, the mentality is there so which does not matter who the actual target is because people are prepared there is an evil plot with just a question of the specifics coming. what we try to do it is to be largely is operational to follow the lead that they want to fallin the blanks to get a sense of how much material there is but also that has not been synthesized that is what we want to show but to suggest there is a tradition created a and recreated in the united states to say in actual political tradition

to come up with scapegoats or her terrorist with the embrace of capitalism and the of these four political with the decades-long tradition in terms of creating a fantasy there is the tradition so let's is that it sets up institutions and assumptions that as the world shives to no longer accommodate with the collapse of the soviet union a scramble to you justify the military buildup to find potential enemies there is a

certain layer that happens over time but if it is a tradition with the inherent characteristic of the magic and personality then you could change traditions to dismantle that there is a pattern. that is what we try to reduce. >> next year will mark the of 50th anniversary of the nationality act that overhauled the nature of american immigration policy. one of the facts today is the great have rhode canadian society and like 100 years ago. there are groups that will speak up to dash defamatory malicious groups historians like to say if they're getting better or worse but

to press on that question, we are at a time anyone who has spent one dash ben to brooklyn can help but understand a great variety of the arab american experience and is profound ignorance. synonymous -- is long is not synonymous with muslims so that ignorance persists but yet see them rise to the highest levels in the senate and also asian americans as well. is getting better? yes and no. [laughter] certainly in the cinema there are few were films that vilify arabs then there

were 10 years ago. has gotten much worse and i am worried or concerned actually one is television with a series that started right after 9/11 like 24 even now homeland to portray arab-americans and muslim americans as terrorists. we have nothing whatsoever to do with an 11 -- 9/11 five wed be amazed how many people think i am a muslim. i just say yes it would be nice to have a mosque on the island. [laughter] then there is silence. i think until the time comes when i make that statement somebody response yes it would be nice we have some great synagogues, a presbyterian, a catholic, ,

etc., etc. it would be great to have a mosque on the island. so i hammer this tom if i should be so bold to say fox news and republican candidates have used islam a phobia as a means for special interest groups as an excuse to create fear in the hearts and minds of americans. those organizations and with love to have a one-on-one with bill o'reilly how did fox news in a neutral place i would welcome that bill because they are just as guilty your chris matthews. these men have gone out of their way.

and i think the rhetoric rhetoric, talk about words words, the rhetoric continues and no one really challenges these concerns worry me with the high end awareness. >> . .